The traditional musical notational system for Western music developed in Europe from the work of a monk named Guido d' Arezzo (Guido of Arezzo).
That notational system conveys information about the melody, rhythm and harmony of a piece of music which has been written within the convention of the grand staff.
Guido d' Arezzo was motivated primarily to find an unambiguous method of writing down the musical sound content of Gregorian chants. He was developing a notational system which was to be used by vocalists, not by instrumentalists.
Instrumentalists, unlike vocalists, produce music by the physical manipulation of a musical instrument. A trained musician can derive those physical manipulations from the information that is contained within the conventional notation. For example, a pianist can read a piece of music in the conventional notation and decide which finger to use on which key of the keyboard to play each note.
The translation of music in conventional notation into manipulation of the keyboard requires a high degree of skill, which is not easy to acquire. The translation can also, in some respects, be ambiguous.
Historically there have been some forms of tablature for keyboard and string instruments which set out some information about the physical manipulations of the instrument which should take place to play a piece of music. These forms of tablature have, however, been developed as ‘memory joggers’ for musicians who either already knew the music or who would be using the tablature together with the conventional notation for the piece of music.
It is accordingly an aim of the present invention to provide a representation of a piece of music which serves primarily as a set of instructions on the physical manipulations which a performer is to perform in playing a piece of keyboard music. It is a particular aim to provide such instructions precisely and unambiguously.
It is a further aim of the present invention to provide a medium for the storage and retrieval of data. In particular, it is an aim of the invention to provide such a medium for which the data is a piece of music.